Tory leadership candidates aren’t focused on the issues that really matter

For some time now, it’s as if we’ve been existing in a parallel universe.

There’s the one in which the public sector is cracking at the seams, in all areas. There are backlogs everywhere, shortages of staff across the board, everything is taking longer – the impression is of a national and local administrative, operational machine grinding to a halt.

And there’s the one in which the outgoing prime minister was arguing with his then-chancellor about making tax cuts. That dispute has spilled over to the Conservative leadership contest, to the extent that it has come to dominate the proceedings. You could be forgiven for supposing this is a competition based entirely around the ability of the entrants to deliver reductions in taxes, such is the attention heaped on this one aspect of policy.

It's bizarre, and wrong. Fine, if ours is a boom-boom, all-systems-go, high-growth economy, where prosperity and spending are surging through the land so that the exchequer’s receipts are on an upward trajectory then, yes, cut taxes safe in the knowledge that the cash would flow in from increased activity, raised employment, sales and profits.

But that is not where we are – quite the reverse. Yet most of the Tory candidates insist on pushing their belief in reductions and, to be fair, they are put on the spot, constantly, to reinforce that position.

Only one, Rishi Sunak, is more circumspect. That, you suspect, is down to his natural caution, not to mention the fact that he is the single contestant who is fully on top of the figures, who was briefed about them daily as chancellor and who knows what is really happening – and what is achievable and, yes, justifiable.

Sunak, though, is not allowed to maintain his stance without being made the subject of hostility, spilling into downright abuse. Johnson was opposed to his view.

Rarely is it asked why Sunak is taking that line. Instead, it’s used as an excuse for straightforward character assassination – that Sunak is not bothered by his personal tax burden because he is so rich and out of touch with ordinary people. No matter that these same ordinary people must wait for months to be seen in the NHS, are witnessing the cutting and closure of social services, their public transport links are less reliable and they cannot get a quick answer from officialdom in any department anywhere because there are not enough officials to deal with them.

Nowhere in this is the word “growth” ever mentioned. Nor is there any focus on our long-term economic strategy. This week, just when the would-be leaders were pressing the flesh among their fellow MPs at Westminster, three reports landed from influential bodies. None of the studies was raised in the campaign.

The Resolution Foundation think tank warned that the UK economy was being dragged down by a “toxic combination of low growth and high inequality”. The Treasury select committee charged ministers with a “lack of long-term thinking in economic strategy”. And the public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) chipped in with research determining that the government’s skills strategy was inadequate for the needs of business.

Were these tomes waved in front of Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss and co? Were they heck. Did the right-wing press seize upon them and demand answers from those who want to govern us? No chance. Rather, it was all about how soon and by how much they aimed to trim taxes.

The Resolution Foundation, working with the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, concluded that our productivity levels had almost reached those of France and Germany in the mid-2000s but then took a beating in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and continued to slip behind during the subsequent Tory-led recovery.

Our richest 10 per cent may be better off than their counterparts in most European countries, but our middle-income households are £8,800 poorer than their equivalents in Australia, France, Germany and the Netherlands – and, far from narrowing, that gap is widening. Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation, did not mince his words, saying the government was “not serious about the nature of our economy… not serious about firms investing… not serious about levelling up… not serious about fairness… [and] not serious about taxes”.

The Tory-led Treasury committee highlighted the fall in the workforce since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the persistent weakness of productivity growth. It said there should be additional resources to tackle long Covid, to help get people back into the labour market and extra assistance from the Treasury to offset the damage done by Brexit, alongside a greater effort to find opportunities from leaving the EU.

Tory MP Mel Stride, who chairs the committee, said that although a focus on tax was a “good start” in improving productivity growth, “the evidence that we received suggests there needs to be greater stability and long-term certainty in government policymaking”.

The independent NAO questioned if we had a skills strategy adequate enough to equip the UK’s workforce for the decades ahead. Brexit, said the NAO report, had reduced the supply of skilled workers from the EU and increased the need to train employees domestically. But corporate training budgets declined by 11 per cent between 2011 and 2019, and 39 per cent of employers had provided no training for their workforce in the previous 12 months.

The watchdog’s boss, Gareth Davies, said it was “essential” that government and employers supported the acquisition of skills.

Three reports from heavyweight organisations painting a dismal picture of where we are but also pointing out what requires to be done. Meanwhile, in Neverland, with the selection of our next prime minister, they’re focused entirely on tax cuts.